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Our work in 2022 /

Prevention and Control

Prevention and Control Based on robust surveillance data, ECDC continued to support countries with the enhancement of their prevention and control programmes to varying degrees, depending on the disease. The basis for this work was the production of timely and relevant evidence-based advice and risk assessments on communicable disease prevention and control to the European Commission and EU Member States.

Specific efforts included work to strengthen vaccination programme delivery and vaccine confidence, provision of guidance to develop evidence-based policies for prevention programmes on COVID-19, hepatitis, HIV, sexually transmitted infections and TB, SoHO, antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention and control-related activities in healthcare settings.

ECDC published models of good practice for community-based testing, linkage to care and adherence to treatment for hepatitis B and C, HIV, and tuberculosis and for health promotion interventions to prevent infections among people who inject drugs.

Support to the Member States for microbiology capacity-building in the areas of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza was launched in mid-2022, and included EQAs, ring trials, antigenic characterisation, and bioinformatics training.

Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, ECDC has been providing relevant and high-quality pandemic monitoring data and scientific advice on COVID-19 prevention and control to support the European Commission and EU Member States. The European Vaccine Monitoring Platform (VMP) was set up jointly with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to assess the impact and effectiveness of vaccines and detect possible safety signals, requiring further investigation.

In 2022, ECDC published a number of protocols and reports related to the ‘Vaccine Effectiveness, Burden and Impact Studies’ (VEBIS) for COVID-19 and influenza on the basis of studies performed in four different settings: hospitals in the context of SARI surveillance (to estimate vaccine effectiveness against severe disease); primary care (to estimate effectiveness against moderate disease); healthcare worker cohorts (to estimate effectiveness against infection) and nationwide registries (to estimate effectiveness against severe disease).

ECDC continued to support the implementation of the 2018 Council Recommendation on Strengthened Cooperation against Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, with a special focus on COVID-19 and influenza vaccines. The Centre worked closely with the National Immunisation Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) and the Health Security Committee to support policy makers and public health experts at national level in the development of vaccine deployment plans, roll-out of vaccination campaigns, and implementation of vaccination strategies for COVID-19 vaccines.

In the area of AMR monitoring, ECDC worked with WHO’s Regional Office for Europe to jointly establish a list of selected monitoring indicators, based on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)/WHO Tripartite Monitoring and Evaluation framework, and these indicators were reported in the first ECDC/WHO Regional Office for Europe joint report on AMR surveillance in Europe (2020 data) Analytical information of this kind on the level of response to AMR is intended to assist Member States in understanding where they should prioritise efforts to prevent and control AMR.

In 2022, ECDC published monitoring reports on how far Member States have achieved the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the areas of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and TB. These reports provide important feedback and data to countries, helping them to benchmark and better plan their use of resources.

ECDC has continued to address the social and behavioural aspects, as well as effective risk communication for the prevention and control of specific diseases. Specific outputs and activities are set out below.

  • Publication of an e-learning course on addressing online vaccination misinformation in June 2022.
  • A range of training courses were conducted on vaccination communication (for 11 Member States with suboptimal COVID-19 vaccination uptake); risk communication (for the ECDC Summer School and the Health Security Initiative countries); and addressing vaccination misinformation (EPIET). In September 2022, a pilot mapping project of social and behavioural science capacities was initiated in four Member States, which, when concluded in Q2 of 2023, will provide methodological guidance for the development of a larger, EU-wide community of practice for social and behavioural scientists. This community of practice will play an important role in the evolving EU prevention framework, development of which is now also underway.

ECDC aims to further identify and develop its role in prevention and control of infectious diseases in a ‘One-Health’ perspective. In 2022, ECDC provided high-quality monitoring data and scientific advice for food and waterborne disease outbreak prevention and control in cooperation with EFSA to support the European Commission and EU Member States.

In the area of microbiology, ECDC significantly strengthened public health microbiology structures and activities in Member States through the implementation of whole genome sequencing (WGS) and RT-PCR infrastructure and capacity-building. ECDC continued to manage the grants awarded to countries in September 2021 through the HERA incubator, to strengthen WGS and diagnostic infrastructures within countries' national public health programmes (more than EUR 77 million provided to 24 EU/EEA countries). The Agency also continued to collaborate with DG SANTE and HaDEA to award follow-up grants to countries under the EU4Health programme. The immediate objective was to reinforce countries' capacities for early detection and enhanced monitoring of emergent and known SARS-CoV-2 variants.